Fail better and revolt (PoemTalk #80)

Tom Leonard, 'Three Texts for Tape: The Revolt of Islam'

Jenn McCreary, Joe Milutis, and Leonard Schwartz (the latter two traveling from the state of Washington) joined Al Filreis at the Kelly Writers House to discuss a poem/audiotext created by the radical Scottish poet Tom Leonard. The piece is part of a work called “Three Texts for Tape,” which was recorded by Leonard at his home in Glasgow in 1978 on the poet’s TEAC A-3340S reel-to-reel tape deck. The part of the project discussed in this episode of PoemTalk is “Shelley’s ‘Revolt of Islam.’” In this piece, Leonard repeatedly — although in voices ranging across class, age, and elocutionary mode — performs stanza 22 of canto 8 of Percy Shelley’s twelve-canto, 5000-line poem.

In Shelley’s “The Revolt of Islam” Laon and Cythna incite a revolution to topple the despotic ruler of the fictional nation of Argolis, who seems to stand in for the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. It's generally agreed that the poem's narrative has nothing apparently to do with Islam in particular, but it has been read as a parable on revolutionary idealism. The PoemTalkers faced the job of trying to discern the significance of Leonard’s choice of this odd, out-of-the-way poem — and this particular stanza of such a poem — but in the course of the conversation we realized that the main issue is what Tom Leonard elsewhere has called “the diction of governance.”* The voices on the tape imply that the achievement of self-determination depends on struggling against received linguistic standards. Leonard, says Jenn McCreary, is here “looking for a way to find a voice for revolution,” in a situation where the certain sounds of certain voices remain culturally marginalized and literarily uncanonized. The stanza can be heard alternately as a prayer, an angry invocation, a vocal fumble or stutter, or the perfect incantation of an imperializing elocutioner. Thus it is far more interpretively open than would be apparent from the Shelley text without the benefit of “provincial” vocal performance. The audiowork seems in part to stand as a refusal of the effect in Scotland of formal education on the perceived value of literature. Leonard's radicalism is often — and we rather think is here, too — about the suppressions of pedagogy. He has argued, for instance, that exams have the effect of penalizing traditions of poetry for which a gradeable vocabulary of criticism has yet to be worked out. This, the PoemTalkers felt, partly or mostly explains the choice of Shelley’s distended, literarily far-flung, and narratively confusing poem — the minor work that seems directly political but turns out to be stubbornly and diffusely allegorical in its politics. But its linguistic politics seem somewhat clearer, at least to Leonard: he seems interested in affirming the connection between the Oxford English of the Oxford that expelled Shelley for refusing to repudiate authorship of writing deemed scurrilous and the Shelley who then immediately wrote a long, strident anti-monarchical poem and then eloped to Scotland.

Here’s the stanza of Shelley performed variously by Leonard:

“‘Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself,Nor hate another's crime, nor loathe thine own.It is the dark idolatry of self, Which, when our thoughts and actions once are gone,Demands that man should weep, and bleed, and groan;Oh, vacant expiation! Be at rest.—The past is Death's, the future is thine own;And love and joy can make the foulest breastA paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest.’”

Leonard’s PennSound page includes a sampling of his multi-track tape settings recorded at home in the 1970s. For this one the PennSound staff are grateful to the Archive of the Now. Our engineer for this episode of PoemTalk was Steve McLaughlin and our editor was Allison Harris.

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*Quoted in Richard Blaustein, The Thistle and the Brier: Historical Links and Parallels between Scotland and Appalachia (2003), 142.

POEMTALK is a collaboration of the Kelly Writers House, PennSound, and the Poetry Foundation. PoemTalk’s producer and host is Al Filreis, our engineer is Zach Carduner, and our editor is the same talented Zach Carduner (whose predecessors were Amaris, Cuchanski, Allison Harris, and for most of the early episodes, Steve McLaughlin). PoemTalk is also available on iTunes. Click this link to subscribe; or go to your iTunes music store and type "PoemTalk" in the search box.

GATHERING PARADISE:At the end of each episode of PoemTalk, we gather paradise, commending one person or trend or happening in the poetry world. Here is a sampling of paradisal gathering across the episodes:[] Thinking about Williams's sense of the postindustrial way we live, Linh suggested we look at Mike Davis on "our living arrangements" (PT #1). [] Rachel celebrated the publication of the new bpNichol Reader, Alphabet Game (PT #3).[] Erica Kaufman commended David Trinidad's new book, The Late Show, in particular the poem "From the Life of Joe Brainard" (PT#5). [] Kenny Goldsmith happily pointed out a feature on UbuWeb in the March 2008 issue of Artforum (PT#6). [] Ron Silliman recommended a poetic sequence by Philip Whalen entitled The Children, based on photographs by Aram Saroyan (PT #8). [] C.A. Conrad recommends State of the Union: 50 Political Poems from Wave Books (PT #13). [] David Grazian, thinking of poetics-minded sociologists, wants us to read Loic Wacquant's Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (PT #18). [] Wystan Curnow wants us to look at jackbooks.com (PT #22). [] Frank Sherlock urges us all to read Joe Massey (PT #23).[] Natalie Gerber commends the Dodge Poetry Festival and its new-ish YouTube channel (PT #24).[] Joe Milutis suggests we all check out the work Danny Snelson has been doing (PT #25).[] We all praised Lorenzo Thomas's Don't Deny My Name: Words and Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition, esp. Aldon Nielsen who had the happy/unhappy task of editing it posthumously (PT #26).[] Jerome Rothenberg points us to two new anthologies: Mark Weiss’ The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetryand Cecilia Vicuna and Ernesto Livon-Grosman’s The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry (PT #27).[] Rachel Blau DuPlessis suggests Prismatic Publics: Innovative Canadian Women’s Poetry and Poetics, edited by Kate Eichhorn and Healther Milne, new from Coach House Books (PT #28).[] Linh Dinh recommends poet Mathias Svalina’s new book Destruction Myth(PT #29).[] Joey Yearous-Algozin lets us know about a new critical journal out of Buffalo called “Wild Orchids" (PT #31).[] Nada Gordon commends Brandon Brown’s three chapbooks: Tooth Fairy, The Orgy, and Your Mom’s a Falconress (PT #33).[] Bob Perelman encourages us to watch the recording of Laura Elrick’s March 2010 reading at the Kelly Writers House (PT #34).[] Sarah Dowling wants us to download Divya Victor’s book Sutures on Lulu (PT #35). [] Don Share is thrilled about Stanford’s new edition of Larry Eigner’s collected poems, four volumes of more than 3,000 poems reproduced in Courier font (PT #36). [] Julia Block is reading Philadelphia poet Kevin Varrone’s Passyunk Lost, out from Ugly Duckling Presse (PT #38).[] Tracie Morris recommends Sekou Sundiata’s jazz album The Blue Oneness of Dreams(PT #39). [] Jamie-Lee Josselyn reminds us about Joe Brainard’s PennSound author page; in particular, his “I remember” recordings (PT #40).[] Al Filreis suggests we check out Richard Sieburth’s new edition of New Selected Poems and Translations by Ezra Pound (PT #41).[] Fred Wah points us to the translation work that Italian-Canadian poet Louis Cabri is doing (PT #44).[] Charles Alexander is reading Amnesiacby poet Duriel E. Harris, out from Sheep Meadow Press (PT #45).[] Joan Retallack commends Caroline Bergvall on her new book Meddle English(PT #46).[] Jessica Lowenthal is enamored with Erica Baum’s project Dog Ear, some of which is available on Jacket2 (PT #47).[] Mike Hennessey tells us about CA Conrad’s video journal of contemporary poetry, Jupiter 88 (PT #50).[] Greg Djanikian would like us to watch the recording from Jane Hirschfeld’s visit to the Kelly Writers House (PT #52).[] Bob Perelman coins the term “high flarf” when recommending Ben Friedlander’s book Citizen Cain(PT #54).[] Katie Price suggests Craig Dworkin’s book Parse(PT #55).

From left to right, Jerome Rothenberg, Jeffrey Robinson, and Charles Bernstein discuss Robert Duncan for PoemTalk #27.